Mistletoe for Crowley and Granby
by renrenren3
Summary: Crowley doesn't like Christmas, doesn't like this party and doesn't like anyone in this room. Apart maybe from Granby.


Crowley was opposed to Christmas on moral grounds [1] but he found that Christmas in the nineteenth century were much too dull for his tastes. Too much going to mass and singing bad hymns and women in drab dresses.

[1] Or at least he would have been if he wasn't opposed to morals as well.

Say what you wanted against Louis XIV, but that man knew how to host a decent party. And then those damn revolutionaries just had to go and chop off the heads of every interesting person in France. Of course, chopping heads had been exactly what Crowley's superiors [2] had wanted - bloody murder, panic in the streets, the price of bread rising - but it was a shame about the parties.

[2] Technically they weren't his superiors since they weren't _above_ him but rather below, infernal hierarchies being what they are. But _inferiors_ just doesn't have the same ring to it, and anyway hell isn't literally underground. [3]

[3] Unless you were in a Looney Tunes cartoon. [4]

[4] Which wouldn't be invented for over another century yet anyway.

He'd ended up wandering off to England a few weeks earlier with some orders from Down There about starting a plague. Privately he thought that his superiors were being way too old fashioned but he didn't mind an excuse to get away from Paris. Too many Frenchmen there. Not that Crowley had any problems with Frenchmen. It was their damn language: it's hard to speak French fluently when you have a tendency to hiss any word, even those without an actual 'S' in them.

So here he was at the ball hosted by the admiralty, all alone [5] in a foreign land. The two men in front of him (Captains of the Aerial Corps, from their uniforms) were clearly just as bored of his company as he was of theirs and were trying to hide this with various degrees of success.

[5] Aziraphale had stayed behind, claiming that some of the French painters were on to something. Crowley would have bet against it, but angels didn't bet. He hadn't asked why but suspected it was because either A) angels weren't allowed to do anything fun or B) ineffability.

The younger man - Captain Granby - made a great show of going to fetch them a glass of wine. Crowley smiled and thanked him, hoping he would forget to come back. Him and his companion were nice people... and that was the problem. It was just Crowley's curse, he always found himself falling in with the good crowd.

Captain Laurence seemed about to make yet another spirited attempt to drag Crowley into a conversation. It would probably help if this didn't involve dragons, since Crowley had an intense dislike for dragons. [6]

[6] There was something unnatural about a big toothed creature with all the potential to cause havoc and none of the predisposition to do so. He thought that dragons were the black sheep of the family, so to speak.

"I see they've put mistletoe everywhere," Crowley commented, wincing at the idea of making small talk about Christmas decorations too. Anything to stop Captain Laurence from telling him another 'funny anecdote about what dear Temeraire did last week'.

"Yes, mistletoe is very festive, isn't it?" Laurence replied. Crowley wondered if he just liked to hear the sound of his voice or if he really found small parasitic plants to be such a fascinating subject. "Not that we keep up with any of the pagan customs of course," he added hastily. "But I believe it was thought to repel evil spirits."

Crowley sniffed. "No, I just have a small allergy to it," he began, only to be interrupted by a tap on the window panes. Outside, Laurence's dragon was trying to attract his captain's attention.

"Laurence, it started snowing again!" he said. "Come and see this."

"He likes snow," Laurence told Crowley apologetically. "I don't even know why, Lord knows we saw more than enough while crossing from China. Granby," he called to the other man who was just now returning with two glasses of wine, "could you please keep Mister Crowley company while I go and see how Temeraire is faring?"

Granby nodded glumly, handing one of the glasses to Crowley. They toasted to England [7] and drank, then stood in a silence that was anything but companionable for a few minutes or so.

[7] Crowley figured it was it a safe bet. Toasting to goodwill or peace always turned the wine sour.

A few minutes is a very, very long time for an awkward sentence.

"I'm sorry," Granby blurted out eventually. "You must find me terribly dull company. I don't have the gift of easy conversation like Laurence."

"He seems to talk a lot," Crowley agreed. "Especially about dragons. I'm not that big on dragons, myself," he added hastily.

Granby shrugged. "We don't get many distractions in the Corps," he said. The fact that he considered this party a distraction was in equal parts baffling and worrisome to Crowley.

"We don't have to talk if you don't talk to," Crowley said. "There's lots of other things one can do at a party."

Most of which were probably illegal but Crowley had always found that more of an incentive than anything else. He grinned. Temptation had always been his kind of thing.

"I suppose we could always dance, if we were so inclined," Granby said reluctantly, glancing at the few couples swaying to a music better suited to a funeral than a celebration.

Crowley's grin widened. "Why, Captain Granby," he said. "I don't dance but thank you so much for inviting me."

He was rewarded by the sight of Granby turning very red in the face very quickly. "I wasn't..." he stammered. "That is to say... I never...!"

"Quite," Crowley replied happily. "How silly of me, two men dancing together! What would the world come to?"

He waited until Granby had regained some composure before adding, "We'd better limit ourselves to more traditional pastimes."

"Such as?" Granby asked.

Crowley pointed towards the mistletoe and, while the hapless captain was looking up, he wrapped one arm around Granby's waist and dipped him to the floor. Granby started voicing his (many, inarticulate, boring) objections but Crowley didn't give him any time to, leaning in and pressing their mouth together.

It wasn't half bad, despite the fact that Granby's lips were chapped and he wasn't much of a kisser. In fact, given how the rest of the evening had gone, this was a definite improvement. Crowley did something with his tongue that he was pretty sure was against the law and Granby moaned and stopped trying to strangle him.

When he broke the kiss Granby gasped for air, staring at him as if he was some kind of unearthly apparition. [8] Crowley noticed that everyone in the room had been staring at them. Not that he could blame them - the evening had been rather dull.

[8] Which Crowley was, to be honest, but that's beside the point.

"Captain Laurence," Crowley called, nodding [9] to the man who was standing at the entrance gaping at them. It seemed that there was a way to shut him up after all. "Care to join us?"

[9] He'd have waved but he was still holding Granby and Granby's knees didn't seem to be working well at the moment.


End file.
